Sometimes a word is better described by its synonyms than its dictionary definition. Take “inconvenience”, for example.

According to Merriam-Webster, it’s a transitive verb that means “to cause problems or trouble for”.

Its synonyms include “aggravation”, “bother”, “exasperation”, “frustration”, “hassle”, “trial”, “vexation” – an enlightening slew of seven that adds a whole lot of drama to an abstract idea.

I was recently full of it – aggravation, I mean. The word, along with its company of suitable helpmates, had more than linguistic prominence in my vocabulary, when I found myself in an upside-down, inside-out sort of situation.

Oh, bother.

To elucidate: The maid went on home leave. No begrudging her the break – it was her well-deserved entitlement.

For a fortnight, though, exasperation reached new heights as my sister and I took informal turns to Mum-sit.

To say we were in it deep would barely hint at the frustration it first entailed. Was it a hassle to put everything else aside and report – as if for work – on rotating day and night shifts?

Yes.

A hard day’s night

The trial lasted 15 long days. But the vexation, a whole lot longer.

There was the morning when, at 8 o’clock, Mum was nowhere to be found: Not in her bedroom, not in the toilet nor in the kitchen, certainly not in the garden … not even in the house. There was no bodily presence, whether dead or alive.

And that was a worry, because with Mum being 91 years old, every door she does not forget to fasten is declaration that God’s eyes are forever locked on her, and every footstep she does not fall over is surety that, indeed, she walks on water (Matthew 14:29).

Mum is the sort (thanks be to God) who will espouse the cause of vitality to her last breath and, to prove she is very much alive, every vanishing act she can stage, she will.

It adds to the triumph of beaming “I am” in the presence of her host of accomplices made up of heavenly angels more in number than anyone could imagine (2 Kings 6:16).

Stealthily, on their hands they have born her up (Psalm 91:12), while her daughters have brooded over the eroding form and developing void over her mind.

For, there are times she remembers not the kaya toast and eggs from Toast Box she had for breakfast, while nursing a kopi not siu-dai in her wrinkled hands, neither the home-cooked scrambled eggs on wholewheat she heartily enjoyed on Sunday before church.

Let’s not talk about the afternoon when a much-anticipated concert date passed her by (“harumph … actually, I didn’t want to go”), and the night the pond pump malfunctioned (“did it?”) – to the agitation of more than just the fish.

She is, however, staunchly obstinate about the diminishing number of things still within her grasp (mahjong and more mahjong) while being distressed over the oblivion that surreptitiously engulfs the daily pills and monthly bills.

But, wait: A wedding dinner invitation? Lunch celebrating a friend’s 95^th? RSVP “yes”, for goodness sake! Let’s go to the hairdresser for a permanent wave first, and if there’s blood-red lipstick on standby, all’s well and forgotten.

Literally.

Faith that acts

Is “good grief” (2 Corinthians 7:10) an appropriate response to the onslaught of yet another seven “inconvenience” synonyms that hits me? 

To put it plainly, the disquiet isn’t hers alone.

Whether it’s dementia or not isn’t the point. My disadvantage is that I’m (supposedly) still the sober-minded one. And my difficulty is that the Spirit of God lets me not alone as I sit under the long-suffering ceiling fan while Mum has her afternoon nap.

“Do you really have five million other things you’d rather do, that would be better to do? Why is your life any more important than hers? Why are your needs any more pressing?

“This inconvenience is a gift.”

The agitation is wholly and absolutely mine now, as strains of “You laid aside your majesty” waft through my conscious mind.

Then comes an awfully quiet word: “ ‘We love because He first loved us’ is a principle.” (1 John 4:19)

How much more grace-laced can truth get?

The burden is of guilt, and the unease is proprietary. If there is any anxiety at all, it is for the fulfilment of Kingdom form and substance in the here and now, through me, for her.

There is a miracle of care-giving (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) to be realised while Jesus waits, figuratively, with breakfast on the shore, and says: “Simon, son of John, do you love me? … Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)